Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imprint method in which an imprint material on a substrate is brought into contact with a mold and is cured in the contact state to form a pattern in the imprint material.
Description of the Related Art
An imprint technique has been known as a technique for manufacturing a semiconductor device. The imprint technique is a technique for forming a pattern in an imprint material provided on a substrate using a mold on which a pattern is formed.
In the imprint technique, if the imprint material is brought into contact with the mold with a foreign matter attached to the pattern formed in the mold, the pattern cannot be accurately formed on the substrate.
In the imprint technique, therefore, the foreign matter attached to the mold is removed and then the pattern needs to be formed on the substrate. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-266841 discusses an imprint apparatus in which imprint is performed on a dummy wafer to remove a foreign matter attached to a mold.
In a case where a pattern is formed in a plurality of shot areas on a substrate using the imprint technique, the pattern is repetitively formed for each shot area to form the pattern in the plurality of shot areas. It was found that the pattern could not be often accurately formed due to the foreign matter attached to the mold in the shot area where the pattern is first formed after the substrate with a plurality of shot areas is carried into the imprint apparatus. This proves that the foreign matter often attaches to the mold while the substrate is carried out of the imprint apparatus and a new substrate is carried into the imprint apparatus.
Even if the foreign matter attached to the mold is removed using the dummy wafer as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-266841, a foreign matter may be attached to the mold while the dummy wafer is carried out of the imprint apparatus and a new substrate is carried into the imprint apparatus. For this reason, a pattern may not be accurately formed in the shot area where a pattern is first formed.